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How I Lost 10 Pounds on the DrupalCon Diet

When I started my new position here at Metal Toad, I was a comfortable 160lbs. After three months of being able to eat at whatever random food cart I wanted, I had ballooned to 180lbs. Believe it or not, I like to play basketball and an extra 20lbs can murder your jump. I don’t want the comment section to devolve into ‘What a healthy weight is’ or anything, so let me just say that 160lbs works and 180lbs doesn’t. My Wii Fit Plus says I’m overweight so that should be satisfactory to the data heads.

Losing weight is hard. DrupalCon can help, and I’m here to tell you how. Follow these simple steps that I’ve outlined below and you too can lose 10lbs at the next DrupalCon (In my very own Portland, OR for the next North American one).

Exercise

Walking - You’re going to walk. Everywhere. All of the events surrounding the convention will likely be in walking distance of some sort. Whatever your normal walking limit is can be thrown out the window. Skip the cabs. Following rule 3b will help with this. Bring good shoes. No good missing out on the diet just because you have a little blister, and geek feet blister easily.

Punctuality - Show up to sessions right on time. This ensures that the other drupalistas will have taken all of the available seating already. The rest are left to stand. Everyone is shuffling, shuffling, shuffling. This is a good thing. Shuffling burns much more calories than sitting.

Memory - Forget stuff. You know that badge you need to get into the convention area? Go ahead and forget that for a day or two. The quick sprint back to the hotel is just what you need to start your day on the wrong/right foot.

EDIT: Hotel Distance (Tip courtesy of Dustin Boeger) - Don't pick the hotel across the street. It will help with your walking. No coder lounge, but that's cool. You can still walk there.

Dietary Accommodations

Coffee Breakfast - Not only does this prevent any real substance from entering your body, it will also give you the jitters to help you shuffle or at least vibrate in your seat if you were unlucky enough to get one. This can also be substituted with an energy drink/shot of your choice.

Box Lunches - The provided box lunches should be picked completely at random. This helps you get something that you didn’t want. You may also win the bonus prize of ‘mass produced food poisoning’. I have a feeling the semi-raw tuna salad helped me out a bit.

More Coffee in the Afternoon - Your coffee buzz has worn off and you’re hungry from lunch. Treat yourself to a nice cup o’ Joe.

Free Hors d'Oeuvres - You’re at the first happy hour party and are probably starving by now. Go ahead and eat. This food is actually good, but luckily there wont be enough of it or there will be a ridiculous line. If you are not attending any parties, well, you’re doing it wrong, but just go ahead and eat something from somewhere. Get full if you can.

Liquid Consumption

Water - While at the conference, drink only water. Coffee doesn’t count as that’s food for now. If you are in a new city, you may want to consider bottled water until you find out about the quality. We don’t want you to get sick or anything. Next year you’re safe, as Portland has excellent water.

Alcohol - This is tricky to understand, but bear with me. People will give you free beer, just because you like Drupal. I’m going to repeat that. People will give you free beer, just because you like Drupal. This beer/liquor is for drinking and you should drink what you think is appropriate. Not what your friends think is appropriate. They are trying to trick you.

Some of you might be thinking “But there’s calories in that there beer!” You are correct, but if done properly, these will be the calories that feed your body. Or they won’t stay with you long. Either way achieves the goal.

Breaking down a sample day:

Wake up and run to the bathroom. This experience will vary depending on your adherence to the program the night before. You may need to sleep more.

Wake up again and get your coffee on the way to the convention center (Don’t forget to forget your badge!)

Get stopped at door and run back to your hotel room for your badge. Another visit to the bathroom is acceptable at this point.

Run to the keynote and find a seat. Sitting is ok after all that running and bathrooming.

Get more coffee at the break and get to the first session right on time. Stand around during the session. If you find yourself in a seat, you can nervously twitch your legs.

Eat your boxed lunch. Or most of it. Some of it at least.

Sessions and coffee. If you’re not going to a party yet, find out where it is.

Happy Hour! Eat and drink as much as you want.

Party! Eat and drink as much as you want.

If you drink so much that you get sick, I highly recommend getting sick in the evening rather than the morning. The intoxication helps.

I can hear the skeptics now: “This would work, but is totally unrealistic because of x!” or “This diet works for others, but not for me!” or “This diet is dangerous, ridiculous, and should not be attempted!” You could be right; I’m not a doctor. Before attempting this, please note that although I lost 10 pounds, it was totally not worth the pain. Also, to be 100% clear, this is satire and no one should take this seriously.

You must have been horrified to learn that this article was about my weight and not the weight of your drupal installation! Oops! If that's something you are interested in, you should check out some of our other posts here. Most of the time we post very helpful articles about Drupal but with the dearth of "This is my rehash of DrupalCon" articles, we thought this might be a welcome reprieve from that monotony. I suppose you can't please everyone.

You also mentioned that you didn't learn anything. Does that mean you already knew about our great water here?!?

Uh-oh. The only comprehensive solution I can imagine for this is some kind of floating like box that follows you like a back-alley thug waiting for you to drop your guard. I'm not sure I want to go that overboard in self-promotion. Next we'll be having popup boxes asking "if you want to chat"...! ;-)

I don't know how I managed to do it at my first DrupalCon but I think I found myself on the same track. Didn't lose 10, but did about 80% of the other stuff. Hilarious, thanks for the post. BTW purposely chosing a hotel not across the street helped with the walking part. But did not help with the rushing back to the room to get stuff I forgot. YMMV.